Crescent City Connection

problem. He called back in fifteen minutes. “I think I’ve got something hot for you. The guy gave his name as Melvin Gibson. Like Mel, you know? Like it was the first name that came into his head. Know what else? He paid us in cash. I remember him now.”
    For a moment she considered asking if Gibson looked like the police sketch of the McDonogh kidnapper, but she decided against it. If it was Daniel, his own brother couldn’t identify him from that.
    Fingerer was still talking. “He rented ’em both.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “That’s a duplex. He rented both sides of it—paid first and last month’s, plus a security deposit.”
    “When?”
    “About two weeks ago.”

Twenty-five
    THEY MOVED TO FBI headquarters—Shellmire; Skip; Cappello because she was Skip’s sergeant; the FBI psychologist and Cindy Lou; Abasolo; Joe Tarantino, the lieutenant in charge of Homicide; and Captain Marshall King, one of the superintendent’s stooges. King wouldn’t make a move without calling the chief, but Skip preferred him to the superintendent—he had a reputation for half a brain at least. She finally had the department’s attention.
    But now it was the FBI’s case—technically. Department lore had it that the FBI assumed command only when they thought they could get some good fast ink. If they were optimistic, there was going to be skirmishing.
    King left the room and stayed gone a long time. When he came back, he was accompanied by Harold Goerner, the Special Agent in Charge, and he was tight-lipped.
    The fighting over command was over—at least for the moment—with predictable results. The feds could always unload it if they thought the case was turning to dog poop.
    Goerner was a short, thick man, not pear-shaped like Shellmire, not soft-looking, just ursine. He was alert and as straight-backed as a recent Marine recruit. He had dark hair, a dark mustache, and a slightly irritated manner, as if he’d snap at you if you offered him a cup of coffee. Skip disliked him almost on sight.
    She and Shellmire exchanged glances. They had ridden over together, speculating on who would “assume on” the case and what the consequences would be in each scenario. Skip said the feds would dump it. “Want to bet?” Shellmire said. “You don’t know about our secret weapon.”
    “What?” she said, “What? Tell me, dammit.”
    “Uh-uh. But you’re gonna like it. I wish I could say the same for Goerner.”
    “What’s he like?”
    “He’s like some dude whose father was in the military and woke him up every day at five A.M. and threw him in a cold shower. And then later he couldn’t decide whether to rebel or conform.”
    “I don’t get it.”
    “It’s like he’s pissed off all the time, because he thinks he’s supposed to be a real hardnose and he doesn’t want to, but he’s got to or he’ll disappoint his daddy. So he’s not only a hardnose, but a pissed-off hardnose.”
    “Charming.”
    “Tell me about your guys.”
    “They’re all solid except for King—I don’t really know him.”
    “So he’s a wild card.”
    “And possibly a loose cannon.”
    Shellmire shook his head. “You’re the loose cannon, Langdon. Are you going to behave?”
    She was only half-insulted. She wanted to do this her own way, though what that was she couldn’t have said. She just knew that she did, and that it must show. And then there was her past record.
    When they were assembled in what resembled a war room—maps on the walls, pointers, coffee, and telephones—they put together a plan. A simple plan, but a woefully incomplete one, due to variables they couldn’t control.
    By ten o’clock, they had the two phone numbers assigned to the duplex in Mel Gibson’s name, lists from the assessor’s office, names and numbers of all the neighbors—in short, a complete dossier of the block where The Jury was holed up.
    Officers had been dispatched to get everyone to leave their houses on this block and the three surrounding streets.
    As soon as that was done, police would simply close off the block and surround it. When they were in position, along with all the TAC units they could muster—NOPD’s and the FBI’s for starters—a hostage negotiator would phone the house. And then what happened was anybody’s guess.
    Goerner turned to the psychologists. “Doctors Taylor and Wootten?”
    The FBI shrink shook his head and drummed his pencil. He looked pale, but that was probably his natural state. “I’ve